Hispanic Fanatic

I’m hoping that my fellow blogger Macon D doesn’t sue me, but he had such an interesting post recently that I’m just going to steal his topic outright and run with it.

At his site, Stuff White People Do, Macon D asks if many whites believe that improvements for ethnic minorities come only at their expense.

Well, as a partial answer, let me say that as far as I can tell, America is the only country in the world where the most economically powerful take to the streets to protest that they are being oppressed.

Please click here to read the rest of this post.

I want to thank Susan A for her recent comments on my post. I’ll also thank DSewell, even though his comment consisted of calling me “nothing but a racist” and launching into an angry diatribe about Los Angeles and Hispanics in general. Why so tense, Mr. DSewell?

Let’s all lighten up. I’ll return to a topic I’ve addressed in the past – namely, my fumbling attempts to relearn Spanish. As I’ve written before, I was semi-fluent at one point, but lack of practice has dropped me to intermediate level at best.

Like every language, Spanish has its fair share of untranslatable phrases and idioms. For example, a few years ago, my mom and my aunt were speaking in Spanish. My mother let loose with a comment that made them both laugh.

Naturally, I asked what she had said. My mother informed me that, strictly translated, the phrase translated into something like “Your stepbrother’s bus is driven by a rage-filled monkey with pneumonia. And he’s very punctual, if you know what I mean.”

Yes, it all makes sense now.

Of course, it’s not just the quirks and exceptions that are frustrating to learners. It’s the faulty translations that well-meaning individuals foist upon the rest of us.

To give you an egregious example, recently I saw a sign outside a nightclub. The sign read, “You must be twenty-one years old to enter.” The very helpful Spanish translation beneath it read, “Necesita tener veinte y uno anos para entrar.”

There was just one problem. The “n” in the word “anos” was missing a tilde, the punctuation mark better known to English speakers as “that wavy line thingy above the letter.” The absence of this diacritical mark altered the sentence’s meaning, just a little.

Instead of saying, “You must be twenty-one years old to enter,” the sign read, “You must possess twenty-one assholes to enter.”

I think we can all agree that even the most determined club-goer is unlikely to achieve this high standard. We can further agree that few doormen or bouncers would be eager to check patrons to verify their adherence to the club’s policy.

I propose a system. Before anyone is allowed to translate anything into Spanish, they must demonstrate their proficiency by repeating the following tongue-twister at a fast rate, and then explaining what it means:

R con R cigarro

R con R barril

rápido corren los carros

cargados de azúcar del ferrocarril

I heard this little ditty a lot growing up. My mother said it often, and then watched amused as I, and the other American-born members of the family, tried in vain to master it. I still can’t do it, but at least I know that it has something to with railroad cars filled with sugar travelling at a high rate of speed.

No, it doesn’t make sense. But then again, when was the last time you saw someone selling seashells by the seashore?

My point – exactly.

I’ve learned a lot of things by following the debate over illegal immigration. For example, I’ve found out that illegal immigrants routinely break into people’s homes and carjack Americans with impunity. I mean, there are scores of horror stories on internet message boards and cable tv news programs about what happened to good, God-loving (or do I mean God-fearing?) communities once a day-laborer moved in next door.

Apparently, it’s not a small percentage of troublemakers who commit these crimes either, but each and every undocumented worker. Therefore, we cannot consider a pathway to citizenship for any of them. They are all guilty. So let’s raze their neighborhoods to the ground.

To read the rest of this post, please click here.

Thanks, as always, to Macon D and Ankhesen Mie for their support. And thanks to all of you who checked out my new gig at Change.org (although, as Ankhesen can attest to, there is more serious crazy among readers of that site than I assumed there would be).

In any case, let’s talk about our favorite people: the architects of Arizona’s anti-immigration law.

The law’s backers believed that their get-tough approach to illegal immigration would garner them nationwide praise and respect. Indeed, many states have proposed enacting a similar version of the law, proof of its effectiveness at riling up conservatives.

However, the law’s supporters must have thought that the only individuals who would object were illegal immigrants themselves and a few bleeding hearts. That hasn’t been the case.

First, the initial public outcry has already been effective in changing the most odious portion of the law. Under the revision, police cannot stop people for the sole reason of questioning their immigration status (in theory at least). The fact that the law’s backers thought everybody would be fine with a cop frisking people at random shows how invincible they believed their position to be.

However, that revision hasn’t prevented further protest. We’ve seen tens of thousands gather from Los Angeles to New York to demonstrate against the law.

More important, talk of boycotting Arizona and/or its corporations has intensified and cannot be dismissed as empty threats. About thirty organizations, and untold thousands of individuals, have pledged to avoid the state. In addition, more than twenty conventions, conferences, and meetings have relocated out of Arizona because of the law.

To get that many people to flee the area, one usually has to announce something truly horrific, like “We start filming Battlefield Earth 2 here tomorrow.” But all that it’s taken is one misguided law.

Recently, St. Paul jumped to the front of what might prove to be a long line of cities banning official travel to the state of Arizona.” Those crazy lefty towns of Los Angeles and San Francisco have also decided to skip sending anyone to Arizona for the foreseeable future.

The cities of Tucson and Flagstaff won’t be on that list (considering its rather difficult to boycott their own state) but their respective city councils plan to sue to get the law changed. Elsewhere in Arizona, people are starting to worry that Major League Baseball will pull the 2011 All-Star Game from Phoenix, as pressure increases on MLB to hold the game somewhere else. Commissioner Bud Selig has insisted that the game will take place in Arizona.

But speaking of the sports world, the Phoenix Suns recently played some games in jerseys altered to read Los Suns to, as player Amare Stoudemire put it, “let the Latin community know that we’re behind them 100 percent.”

Multiple MVP Steve Nash has endorsed the idea, as has former basketball great Charles Barkley. In fact, Barkley says that pro sports teams should actively boycott Arizona (and he lives there).

The funny thing is that Barkley is a well-known Republican. In rethinking his allegence to conservatives, Barkley is not alone. Apparently, even some Republicans don’t think the law is such a great idea.

This feeling is especially strong among conservative Latinos “who have become an increasingly important Republican constituency in a number of Southwestern states [and] are considering bucking their party.” It’s as if Republicans actively wanted to drive Latinos out of the GOP, and thereby verify the allegation that they care only about the well-being of Southern white people.

To be sure, most Americans – and certainly most Arizonians – favor the law. But if the law’s backers thought that only meek objections would greet their decision, they were seriously mistaken.

When you’ve managed to anger the country’s largest minority group, entire municipalities, members of your own political party, and a major sports franchise, you’ve really underestimated the opposition.

I’m working on a book about race and ethnicity right now. Mind you, the publishing house hasn’t accepted my proposal yet, but waiting for them to say ok means that I can’t write impressive sentences like “I’m working on a book right now.” So I’m just going to act like it’s a done deal.

In any case, I realize that to discuss race and ethnicity, I better have a clear definition of what I’m talking about. I’m concerned that this isn’t happening anytime soon.

To read the rest of this post, please click here.

[Hispanics} are like roaches, they keep breeding and breeding and you can never get rid of them. Caucasians need to step up and start having alot of kids, otherwise our race will perish very soon.

Anonymous comment: CNN discussion board

The fallout from the Arizona law continues. Supporters, by some estimates about 70 percent of that state’s population, believe that illegal immigrants will soon be too intimidated to even say the word “Tucson” and, therefore, depart en masse. Critics, including me, point out that being brown is now justification for getting pulled over in Phoenix.

So maybe this person has the right idea. Let’s just make this easy for the Arizona cops.

To read the rest of this post, please click here.

We’ve heard the stories. The border with Mexico is out of control. Mayhem is spilling over into America’s cities. Recently, illegal immigrants murdered an Arizona rancher. What more evidence do you need?

The escalating violence is a big reason that most Americans support Arizona’s new anti-immigration law. However, perhaps they would not be so enthusiastic if it were better publicized that “law officers on the state’s border report that claims of epidemic drug violence in their jurisdictions are overblown.”

Yes, despite all the political posturing, some Arizona cops say “the fact of the matter is that the border has never been more secure” and that despite increased violence in Mexico, “there is remarkably little spillover” in Arizona, where overall violent crime has actually dropped in recent years.

And as tragic as the death of Robert Krentz is, the Border Patrol says, “the slain rancher is the only American suspected to have been killed by an illegal immigrant in the Tucson sector in at least a decade.”

Does this mean that we have nothing to fear from Mexico’s worsening crime situation? Well, that’s a shaky conclusion.

The better question, however, is whether cynical politicians are playing to their base, exaggerating threats, terrifying their constituents, and targeting an ethnic minority to serve as rallying cry and scapegoat… but come on, what are the odds of that farfetched scenario?

Regardless, the inability of Americans to distinguish real violence from horrifying anecdote has been pointed out before. For those who need a primer, however, director Robert Rodriguez has stepped in.

I’m a fan of Rodriguez’s films, which include “From Dusk Til Dawn,” “Sin City” and “Desperado.” His latest, “Machete” is unlikely to be confused with a Merchant-Ivory production. It answers the cinematic question “What happens when you fuck with the wrong Mexican?” To see the mythical “illegal” trailer, check this out. Otherwise, you can see the original below. Regardless of which version you watch, I think you’ll agree it’s unlikely that we’ll ever reach this level of cross-border violence.

With oil slicks spreading across the Gulf of Mexico and Tennessee going underwater and moronic terrorists continuing their obsession with New York City, it’s understandable if the whole shriek-fest over Arizona’s new law has passed from your conscious thoughts.

As you may recall, the law targets illegal immigrants, but many people (including me) are concerned that it will just lead to Hispanics being pressured for nineteen forms of ID whenever they walk down the street.

In any case, one thing that advocates on both side of the debate agree upon is the need for strong federal action. Of course, that doesn’t look like it’s happening anytime soon. Neither political party wants to move quickly on this.

Perhaps we should blame Republicans for wanting this issue to continue festering in order to keep their base riled up. Maybe we should blame Democrats for displaying, once more, their well-honed cowardice. Or perhaps we should just be honest and blame ourselves for profiting from the hard work of the undocumented and then getting self-righteous about their presence.

Still, at some point, immigration reform will happen. But it will be ugly, and everyone will be at least a little disappointed, so don’t get your hopes up. This is because, while we all agree that illegal immigration is a problem, we have contrasting solutions to the problem.

Hell, we can’t even agree on the severity of the crime. Conservatives view the act of illegally immigrating to a country as one notch below murder. In their opinion, the behavior of the undocumented is so egregious that no penalty short of permanent deportation can make up for it.

In contrast, liberals see illegal immigrating as one notch below shoplifting. Surely, they say, we can work something out.

This is, to put it mildly, a discrepancy. Perhaps it cannot be bridged.

So we continue to demonize each other as, respectively, ignorant racists or softheaded appeasers. We also engage in dicey behavior. As Hector Tobar put it, “Opponents of legalization draw crude caricatures of the undocumented, while supporters aren’t fully honest about the challenges to U.S. society.” In such an atmosphere, simplistic answers are what we will continue to hear.

Regardless of what immigration reform ultimately looks like, I hope it will benefit people like Ekaterine Bautista, an Iraq War veteran who served honorably for six years. An illegal immigrant, she faces deportation rather than a citizenship ceremony.

What should we do with her? Should we kick her out or acknowledge her service? Can we even debate it, or are we too far gone for that?

A great thing about writing a blog is that one can just check the events of the day and respond with a quick post immediately. A bad thing about writing a blog is that those same events rarely behave and adhere to your schedule, and you end up writing from behind, so to speak.

Such is the nature of the evolving debate over the Arizona anti-immigrant law. I have started and abandoned many posts on this topic because its ever-changing nature and unending cascade of loony behavior have made my points obsolete before I could slap punctuation at the end of a given sentence.

The Arizona law, which makes it unlawful to so much as resemble an illegal immigrant, has offered America even more ludicrous moments and bizarre antics than we’ve come to expect from our political theater.

I thought the absurdity had reached its nadir when Senator John McCain insisted, on national television, that illegal immigrants were intentionally ramming unsuspecting citizens on the freeway. But the best was yet to come.

First the GOP, in the true spirit of leadership, announced that it was picking up its loose marbles and going home. Republicans screamed and yelled about how illegal immigration was out of control, but when pressed on how to resolve the problem, they demurred, en masse.

Sounding almost apologetic, Republican Senator Saxby Chambliss of Georgia said,  “We’ve got a lot of work left on our plate between now and the end of the summer. And we’re starting on financial regulatory reform…. I’m not sure where you find the time to deal with these other major issues.”

Chambliss sounded like a teenager complaining about how much homework he received over winter break. But at least he was more rational than Senator Lindsey Graham, of South Carolina, who said “moving forward on immigration” in a “hurried, panicked manner” had offended him so much that he was walking out of talks on climate change legislation. It was as if conservatives had said, “Don’t even ask us to even think about this whole immigration mess. I mean it. We’re willing to destroy the environment over this… if we believed in global warming, that is. So there.”

This caused the rest of us to ask, “Who dragged climate change into this?” But we had no time to ponder because the all-American sport of baseball became the next collateral damage.

With a certain amount of glee, Keith Olbermann stated that the Arizona Diamondbacks are arguably the only MLB team without a prominent Latino player. In addition, many commentators pointed out that Hispanics and Latin American immigrants make up a large percentage of today’s top players. So we should have been unsurprised when protests erupted at Wrigley Field and fans started threatening to boycott next year’s All-Star game, which is being held in (gulp) Chase Field in Phoenix. But at least that shrinking violet, Ozzie Guillen, spoke his mind, for once in his life.

Of course, as we know, nothing really exists in America unless a celebrity is involved. So we were all relieved when our first pop star entered the fray. The beautiful and talented Shakira announced that she is opposed to the Arizona law. I can only hope that if she is pulled over in Tucson, she gives the cops one of those icy glares she utilizes before launching into an especially violent hip shimmy. It will be out of context but even more intense.

By the way, it’s odd that few American-born Latino celebrities are speaking out on the issue. One would think that Jennifer Lopez, for example, could take a brief break from peddling her latest cinematic disaster to at least appear socially conscious. But that’s ok – keep shaking it, J Lo, we still love you!

However, things have now come around again to the world of politics. No, I’m not talking about Arizona Governor Jan Brewer’s superficial change to the law, which she announced yesterday. I’m talking about the once-obscure Pat Bertroche, who is trying to gain the GOP nomination in Iowa to run for a House seat. His recent comments top the list of offensive, perplexing, and just plain oddball statements about Arizona’s efforts.

Bertroche said, when referring to illegal immigrants, that “We should catch ’em, we should document ’em, make sure we know where they are and where they are going. I actually support microchipping them. I can microchip my dog so I can find it. Why can’t I microchip an illegal?”

Before anyone could answer this most unanswerable of questions, Bertroche  said of his own proposal, “That’s not a popular thing to say.”

Perhaps he’s a master of understatement, but Bertroche could have added, “And it’s not sane, coherent, respectful, or in any way related to the real world. In fact, it’s just batshit crazy and wildly racist.”

But he didn’t, so we’ll just have to imagine it. Fear not, however, I’m sure before all this is over, somebody or something else will top the insanity we’ve seen so far.

Perhaps we should start praying now.

In a recent post, I wrote about the inherent Latino-ness of California. In a different post, I wrote about the continuing saga of illegal immigration in Arizona. Now watch in amazement and wonder as I twist and meld those two disparate subjects into a wholly new post.

As I mentioned, the new archbishop of the Los Angeles diocese is Jose Gomez, who is in line to become the first Hispanic cardinal in the United States. The new archbishop has a more tolerant view of immigration than many of his Christian peers, which is not surprising in light of his Latino heritage. But it may intrigue some people that the outgoing archbishop, Cardinal Roger Mahony, is just as adamant in opposing the demonization of the undocumented.

Mahony recently compared Arizona’s anti-immigrant law to “German Nazi and Russian Communist techniques.” Mahony said that Arizona had created “the country’s most retrogressive, mean-spirited, and useless anti-immigrant law” that is based on “abhorrent tactics [used] over the decades with absolutely no positive effect.”

Mahony adds that the law features “totally flawed reasoning: that immigrants come to our country to rob, plunder, and consume public resources. That is not only false, the premise is nonsense.”

With their respective attitudes toward immigration, both Mahony and Gomez line up with their fellow Californians more than many social conservatives would like to admit.

For example, the LA Times recently released a poll about Proposition 187, that infamous piece of legislation that denied public services to illegal immigrants. The law passed in 1994 by a healthy margin.

However, the years have not been kind to the law. Now, more Californians oppose it then support it (by 47 percent to 45 percent). The LA Times attributes the change, in part, to the growing number of Latino voters, but adds that age plays an even bigger role.

“Californians aged 18 to 29 opposed this proposal by more than a 20-point margin, while voters 65 and over supported it by 12 points,” the survey said.  This was “a much larger disparity than when the results were examined by racial or ethnic category,” adding that “voters under 45 joined Latino and Asian American respondents in answering that illegal immigrants represent a net benefit.”

Apparently, “young Californians [have] a much higher comfort level than their elders with those of different racial and ethnic backgrounds. In both cases, exposure has brought familiarity, which has in turn brought tolerance,” according to the LA Times.

Now, it’s easy to dismiss all of us here in California as new-age, touchy-feely liberals with bad morals and a shallow view of life. As a matter of fact, I know a few people like that.

However, it’s well known that California, along with New York, plays national trendsetter more than places like, say Utah or Kentucky do. The opinions about social issues that are formed here always have a strong impact on any national debate. Immigration is just the latest example.

In fact, one could argue that Arizona is simply following in California’s footsteps. The original hard-line approach to illegal immigration (the aforementioned Prop 187) is the legislative godfather to Arizona’s new law.

But if California is any guide, “Arizona’s fast-growing Latino population will eventually begin flexing its political muscle to force a more moderate course on immigration,” according to the LA Times. “Nearly half of all K-12 students and babies born in the state are Latino.”

So maybe, despite all the teeth-gnashing and screeching, Arizona and the rest of the nation will eventually adopt California’s social mores. Hopefully, they will do a better job on economic issues, but that’s a whole other story.

Yes, like sushi, yoga, solar power, and other California-born fads, perhaps acknowledging the humanity of immigrants will become the latest national trend.

And that would definitely not be gnarly.